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Commission laments EU ODA state of play

The EU is still failing to meet its development targets as several EU member states have reduced their development aid budgets, falling short of the 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) objective: Nordic countries have traditionally been reliable donors, but both Finland and Denmark announced major cuts to their ODA budgets; France is the world's fifth contributor but has reduced aid from 0.5% of GNP in 2010, and again to 0.36% in 2014; Luxembourg fell below the 0.7% threshold in 2013; Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain all allocate less than 0.2% of their GNI to development aid; the newer Eastern members of the EU had accepted the objective of 0.3% of GNI, but actually contribute around 0.1%. Nevertheless, the European Union spent €58 billion on development aid in 2014, making it the largest contribution in the world. The German government continues to allocate 0.7% of GNI annually to development cooperation.